Chicago without Minis

This past weekend I traveled to Chicago for work without my kiddos. It was my first time leaving my youngest, and while my oldest has spent the night with people before I have never been away from him for four days. When I came home it appeared to me it was obviously harder on me than it was them.

Models waiting for the shuttle

We arrived in Chicago on Friday evening. First stop we hit was a bar in the airport hotel called the Gaslight Club, while the ambiance of the place was cool the drink prices were outrageous. I paid a little over $10 for one Blue Moon… I didn’t drink but half of it before our shuttle arrived.

We were put up at The Willow’s and it was pretty nice. We didn’t spend much time in our room with work and what little free time we had we did want to get out and do touristy stuff. By night time when we were free my phone was usually dead or too low to take pictures which kinda sucked. I think the other girls we went out with snapped some good pictures.

First night we got really distracted. We sat ate to go to a Mexican restaurant, as we headed down the street we ran into an Akira and got so distracted by the window display that we went in and I left with a pair of Jeffery Campbells, then back to the hotel to drop off the shoes and for the other girls to get their phones, from that we decided to take a cab from the hotel to the Navy Pier. There was so many shiny lights and rides that we ended up all over. After eating and everything closing at the pier we were again distracted by a free picture kiosk, after that we ended up at the Signature Room and you certainly pay for the view. If you are a fan of strong drinks they have you covered. Kaylynn tasted my chocolate martini and referred to it as lighter fluid. No doubt being the light weight I am I couldn’t finish half.

The next night we work almost 12 hours, and all had spiffy hair cuts and interesting make up. We had to wash our faces and made it out to eat dinner a little after 10pm. A lot was closed but we found Dukes. The burgers, or at least my mac and cheese topped burger, were delish, and my side of fried green beans were also yummy, but overly filling. The music there catered to my taste and over all it was a trendy burger bar complete with mustached hipster bar tender.

Our last day in Chicago we fell asleep around two, after a night of laughing so hard you wake up with miraculous abs in the morning, we woke up a little after 7am because our phone was ringing but for Steph saw the clock am thought it said 1:30, we were all in panic and thought the phone ringing was us being in trouble for missing our flights or the shuttle to the airport. Four girls never jumped out of bed so quick. I answered the phone and it was a local photographer for my roomy. As all our eyes came to focus we saw it was in fact 7:30am. After that much adrenaline pumps through you, you aren’t going back to sleep.

We decided to go be tourist and see the bean. That morning to save on cab fair we took the train, it did take much longer to get down-town but it was a lot of fun. We got to Millennium Park and had a blast taking pose-y pictures with all the fountains and sculptures. We had to leave down town by 11:30 so we had a shortage of time but it being our last few minutes in Chicago it was worth the train ride.